I am reminded of the best elements of the early nineteenth century British Watercolour School: the impressionistic use of colour and the strong sense of place that only comes from working in situ.

The moors and coastline are taken head on in the pictures with grains of sand left on a canvas that have been executed on a lonely strand. Rain showers and sea spray leave their mark on the work in Saul’s endeavour to connect with what he sees around him.

What at first viewing can seem like wild abstraction soon reveals its own logic and need to be included in the painting.

I would also argue that Saul’s years studying sculpture have given the landscapes an intriguing spatial awareness. This is evident in the sense of ‘middle distance’ that so many of the paintings convey and is particularly effective when set against the maelstrom of Saul’s abstract depiction of sea, sky and weather.’

There is something both refreshing and disturbing about Saul Cathcart’s exhibition. Refreshing, in a seaside town where much of the art is kitsch or quaint and provided with an obvious eye on the tourist trade. But disturbing? You know immediately that you have entered something different. This work is disturbing in a way which draws you back, engages and interrogates you. The works draw on familiar traditions which explore light and movement, and ought to feel comfortable. Instead they give rise to a sense of dis-ease; a discomfort which draws you in rather than repelling.

The title of the exhibition gives a clue to an early contradiction. Colour swirls in these canvases; the medium is the subject. There is only a nod towards the figurative in just the sketchiest of fashions. And then, to the side or in the distance of the picture plane, there is a carefully observed and described outline of a cliff, a hilltop, a building. The two elements – the figure and the tones – seem to crash against each other like waves on the shorelines which so inspire the artist. And that movement continues at a deeper level. Am I looking at a line drawing which is threatened by a sea (sic) of tones and hues? Or am I presented with a celebration of medium, into which an alien form intrudes brusquely, recklessly? Just what am I looking at? Now you see it …

Within the scope of artistic response, both the abstract and the figurative have their place. But in these works, they don’t ‘speak to each other’ easily; it is hard to say whether they complement or challenge one another. One is reminded in almost every piece that one way of seeing never completely excludes others; one way of seeing is always at risk of turning into another. They remind us that we make choices about how we see.

If form is the first area of discord in this exhibition, then the palette Cathcart brings to his work is the second. Amongst the blues and whites and earth tones lavishly applied, flash streaks of day-glo pinks and greens and yellows. We may have become used to artists exploring constituent tones in a landscape or still life, but even so these strident electric colours are clearly out of place. Or are they? Has the artist seen something we have missed? It is tempting to see in those flashes the flags, the life guards, the surf boards and surfers who certainly display them. Maybe that is what we have here: a vestigial reference to human activity (otherwise largely absent from this exhibition) shown as trailing light; a time-lapse capture. But the sense of discomfort isn’t easily assuaged. Maybe the artist really has seen something which is invisible to us. Now you see it …

At one level, art is the re-presentation of the world via the artist’s response and a given medium. Good art, though, engages us and shows fresh ways of seeing. Even better art challenges us to consider how we see. This is what we find in this exhibition.